The present invention is concerned with a tray-like container typically employed in the distribution of bakery products. Many examples of containers of this type are found in the prior art, see for example U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,951,265; 4,102,453; 4,189,052 and 4,211,327.
The containers of the type with which the present invention is concerned are typically designed so that like containers may be stacked one upon the other with the upper of the two containers being selectively supported at a high, intermediate or low elevation relative to the underlying container. The low elevation stacking finds the stacked containers in a (substantially) fully nested position relative to each other which will provide a stack of minimum height when the containers are empty. The intermediate and high level stacking relationships are employed depending upon the height of bakery products loaded upon one of the containers.
While three-level stacking as described above is quite common in the art, many different designs and structural arrangements have been employed to achieve three-level stacking. Some prior art designs require different orientations of the upper of two stacked containers relative to the lower to accomplish stacking at different levels. Other prior art arrangements find the stacked containers in the same front-to-rear orientation at all three stacking levels, which is generally considered to be a preferred arrangement, but are found difficult to stack in the desired relationship with each other, because the person who is manually stacking the containers must manually move selected mating surfaces on the two containers into engagement with each other without being able to clearly see what he is doing.
The present invention is especially directed to a three-level container in which the same front-to-rear orientation of two containers relative to each other is preserved at all three stacking levels, and in which the stacking elements of the upper of two containers being stacked are positively guided to the supporting portions of the lower container which establish the intermediate and lower level stacking positions.